How Did Galileo See Sunspots, Moon Craters & Jupiter's Moon?

Back in the 1600s the telescope technology hadn't advanced very much and the magnification of the telescope wasn't very productive. Find out if Galileo saw sun spots, moon craters and Jupiter's moons with help from an experienced education professional in this free video clip.

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Video Transcript

Hi. My name is Eylene Pirez, and I'm an astrophysicist. And this is how did Galileo see sunspots, moon craters and Jupiter's moons. So back in the 1600s the telescope technology hadn't advanced very much and the magnification of the telescope wasn't very great. Galileo did adapt some of the technology that was available and tried to optimize it. But still his telescope had a lot of optical issues and a lot of aberrations with fuzzy patches. But this didn't stop him from observing. But here's a little sketch of what his telescope actually looked like. So he used a plano-convex lens, means the surface is collecting the light rays coming from the object. And convex part of it focuses it. So it focuses the light rays into one point, much like all the optical devices you have. This lens is called the plano-convex. And what he did is that he put a diversion eyepiece and then he could see the image upright. And what this does, it amplifies the image and here's the eye. And this is the diversion eyepiece. With this technology not only could he see upright figures, he could actually see a magnification up to 30 times. And that's how Galileo, that's how Galileo observed all of the solar system. My name is Eylene Pirez, and I'm an astrophysicist and this is what did Galileo use to observe the craters and Jupiter.